Robbie and Khala Burres moved to Clarksville from Washington state, and not just for a duty station at Fort Campbell. They were pulled in by the buyer-friendly housing market.

"We actually had a choice between moving to Fort Riley, Kansas; Fort Drum, New York; and Fort Campbell, and we chose Clarksville and Fort Campbell because of the area, and the home-pricing atmosphere — you get a lot of home and land for the money here," Khala Burres said.

They aren't alone. Houses in Clarksville are selling almost twice as fast as they did just a year ago, and the housing prices continue to climb.

The trend is mainly driven by the traditional Clarksville factors of military troop strength and stability plus favorable interest rates. But two new factors seem to be at work: The emergence of more big industry, and a growing influx of Nashville commuters looking for affordable housing with less than an hour's commute.

The Burres family — native to California — moved to Fort Campbell from their previous duty station, Fort Lewis, Washington.

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Robbie and Khala Burres, Clarksville military newcomer couple, pose for a portrait inside the kitchen area of their home.(Photo: Erica Brechtelsbauer/The Leaf-Chronicle)

"We come from California, and we pay a mortgage now that is equal to a studio home with maybe one room on the coast. Here, we own our home," Khala Burres said.

The couple prefer living off post. While still at Fort Lewis, the Burreses made all of the selections online for their 1,600-square-foot home off Trenton and Needmore Roads. Then they en monitored construction from the opposite end of the country.

Khala says on top of the three-bedroom, upstairs bonus room design, the added benefit of their home is its convenience to Fort Campbell, shopping and schools.

"If you are military, and you know that you are going to be here for a while, it's a good investment to go ahead and buy your home, especially with the lower interest rates we've been seeing for an extended period of time," Khala Burres said.

What's driving the boom

In regional trends, Austin, Texas; Charleston, S.C.; and nearby Nashville are on track to build 107.7 percent, 72.8 percent, and 65.8 percent more homes, respectively, this year than their local historical averages — the most of the nation's 100 largest metros, say economists for the national real estate website Trulia.

Dramatic growth in Nashville is spilling out to boost the demand for new homes in Clarksville — already robust because of Fort Campbell, continued growth at Austin Peay State University, and new industry coming here. That includes the $800 million Hankook Tire plant, expected to celebrate a grand opening next month, and the $250 million LG Electronics plant, which observed its groundbreaking earlier this summer. Also, site plans have been reviewed for the 980 acres where a $600 million Google data center is to be built.

Some of the new subdivisions popping up in Montgomery County are outside the city limits, to include Easthaven south of Clarksville off Highway 41A. Principal developers for Easthaven are Lawson Mabry and Chad Byard.

There, many of the estimated 250 new homeowners are expected to be Nashville commuters. Mabry said he and builders are seeing that as a growing trend, especially in the east side of Clarksville.

"A lot of what I am hearing is from talking with other builders and Realtors, but we are seeing an increasing number of people moving to Clarksville from the Nashville area, and what's most interesting about it is that most of them have no real connections to Clarksville. That's what's really different about it, compared to the past," Mabry said.

"In most cases, it's a trend driven by the rising home prices in Nashville, coupled with the fact that we have a good public school system here in Montgomery County," he said.

Easthaven has a 20-acre commons area that will include a community swimming pool funded through a homeowners association — a new twist as local subdivision zoning restrictions continue to evolve.

Mason Boisseau of BRM Homes, one of the builders in Easthaven, said the "Nashville spillover" factor is real.

"Nashville is kind of overflowing into our direction," Boisseau said, "mainly because it's more affordable here than in Nashville at present."

Loni Young and family illustrate the Nashville spillover effect. The Youngs selected Clarksville and purchased their home in October 2016, after an extensive home search in Nashville. To make a long story short, the Youngs were unhappy with their Nashville home search experience for "too many reasons to list."

"After about one year of this we started expanding our search area and looked at all outlying cities. We found ourselves visiting Clarksville repeatedly," Loni Young said.

The family, Young said, was able to find a house they wanted in Sango, "at a price substantially below Nashville which would have been in a less-desirable area."

As a result of this and other similar examples, local homebuilders are expanding their horizons, even developing twice as many rural Montgomery County lots as in the past, said Karen Blick with the Clarksville-Montgomery County Home Builders Association.

But keeping up with the growth may be a challenge. Numbers indicate that available inventory is in decline. And in the long term, local developers say the deeper question may arise: "When do we run out of developable land based on the county's current urban growth plan?"

"Right now our situation is the number of new homes available on the Clarksville market," Blick said. "The number as of Aug. 5 was 1,077. Normal for the past few years has been 1,800 to 2,000."

Different buyers, different expectations

As that Nashville-commuter demand rises, the homebuyer expectations have shifted.

Builders such as Alan Burkhart with Burkhart Construction and Marty Darnell with Darnell Construction, join Boisseau in striving to keep pace with the demand.

"We're working to build a product that they want, which is important in maintaining a healthy market ... popular things like the open kitchen concept is one of the main amenities homebuyers want. Things like quartz or granite countertops, and backsplashes," Boisseau said.

Other must-haves in new home design range from decorative crown molding to under-counter and recessed ceiling lighting, and outdoor areas, such as covered porches, patios or decks.

Boisseau showed one Easthaven home exhibiting the latest hot-selling design in 2,700 square feet with four bedrooms and three full baths, plus large walk-in closets and upscale showers.

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From left, Clarksville couple Abby and Daniel Binkley, stand with local realtor Kayla Goad-LeVan with Century 21 Platinum Properties, who recently sold the newly constructed home in Bellshire subdivision to them. Erica Brechtelsbauer/The Leaf-Chronicle

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Natives restless to move, too

People already here are getting in on the act. Kayla Goad-LeVan with Century 21 Platinum Properties recently sold a newly constructed home in Bellshire subdivision to lifelong, young Clarksville couple Daniel and Abby Binkley.

The Binkleys were looking for something new in familiar territory around Memorial Drive, but eventually, they were surprised by what Bellshire had to offer off the Martin Luther King Jr. Parkway.

"We kind of wanted to stay in that familiar bubble around Memorial Drive," Daniel Binkley said, "and we had looked and looked, and over time we learned that there is give-and-take involved in finding a house."

The new construction market is also seeing a boom from ultra-low interest rates, currently hovering around 4 percent.

"We kind of have a lot of factors happening in Clarksville at the same time," Goad-LeVan said. "I do think a lot of builders sort of let up on their activity after Hemlock Semiconductor decided not to open their plant (the company shut down in 2013 only weeks after finishing construction on the $1.2 billion facility.)

"The Nashville spillover is a growing factor. A lot of people are seeing that they can get a lot more home for the money, compared to Davidson or Williamson counties," Goad-LeVan said.

"We didn't initially see ourselves going into new construction," Abby Binkley said, "but we realized it was probably best for us at this point in our lives."

The Binkleys and their 10-year-old daughter, Audra-Grace, now live in a 2,600-square-foot home with four bedrooms and three baths built by Ronnie Goad Construction of Clarksville.

They say it's probably the largest home they'll ever want. Once their daughter grows up, Daniel predicts, like many young families today, the couple will downsize their living space. But for now, they love the floor plan of their new home, which offers an upstairs bonus room for Audra-Grace to grow into.

Reach Business Editor Jimmy Settle at 931-245-0247 and on Twitter @settle_leaf.

BY THE NUMBERS

Measuring the first eight months, Jan. 1-Aug. 31, here's an annual comparison of the local market's performance from 2012 until now: